The present invention relates to a cage nut assembly.
Cage nut assemblies are well known in the art and provide a useful function in that they are able to hold a threaded nut at locations in a frame that are difficult or in some cases impossible to reach with a tool. Cage nut assemblies are used in vehicles for seat attachments, radiator attachments, chassis to drive train attachments, and for any other nut application that requires the nut to have a float/adjustability feature along at least one of the “X”, “Y” and “Z” axes in order to accommodate tolerance variations and enable engagement thereof by a male threaded fastener.
Problems have arisen in conjunction with prior art cage nut assemblies. One problem occurs after the cages of the cage nut assemblies are welded to a mating surface, such as an automobile frame. After the cages are welded to the automobile frame, the frames are sent through a bath that adds a corrosion or paint coating thereto, such as an e-coat or ELPO bath. In cage nut assemblies where the underside of the nut is capable of sitting flat against a portion of the cage, the nut and cage may become fused or stuck together when the bath is applied as the cage nut assembly moves through the bath in a horizontal position, thus inhibiting or removing the intended float/adjustability feature of the nut within the cage.
Two separate United States patents have acknowledged this problem and have attempted to provide cage nut assemblies which solve the problem. U.S. Pat. No. 5,096,350 discusses the use of any item attached to either the cage or the nut, or to a third part positioned between the nut and the cage, that flattens out when the nut is torqued into place. This item allows for the stand-off needed during the bath and provides for a solid joint when the nut is torqued into place. These flattenable projections either on the cage or the nut, or the addition of a third part with the flattenable projections thereon, provide high manufacturing costs to the cage nut assembly.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,630,686 discusses the use of plastic rings staked at the top of a nut extrusion that hold the nut up off of the cage floor or mating panel, thus removing the possibility that the bath will allow the parts to stick together. The plastic rings are flexible enough to allow a solid joint to take place when the nut is lowered to interface with the cage floor or mating panel when the nut is torqued down. This patent requires the plastic rings in order to perform the desired function. The addition of the plastic rings to the cage nut assembly is expensive and the rings sometimes disengage from the assembly when the nut is torqued into place thus causing a buzz, squeak rattle (“BSR”) issue with customers.
These two prior art United States patents are only designed to work when the cage nut assembly runs through baths in the horizontal position, and the underside of the nut is sitting on the cage floor. However, many times, cage nut assemblies are required to run through baths in sideways or upside down positions, such that the sides or top of the nut is capable of resting flat against a flat surface portion of the cage, thus allowing for the nut and cage to become stuck together, thereby inhibiting the intended float/adjustability of the nut within the cage. These two prior art United States patents do not address the issue of when the cage nut assembly is upside down or on its side when running through the bath, that the other sides of the nut could stick to either the walls of the cage or to the ceiling of the cage.
Thus, there is a need for a cage nut assembly which does not allow the nut to become stuck to the cage during the application of a bath and which overcomes the disadvantages of the aforementioned United States patents which have attempted to solve this same problem.